wirepuller

PRONUNCIATION:

(WAIR-pool-uhr)

MEANING:

noun: A person who manipulates or exerts control from behind the scenes.

ETYMOLOGY:

From wire + puller. Earliest documented use: 1824.

USAGE:

“Thurlow Weed, New York’s cagey behind-the-scenes Republican wirepuller,
was telling Lincoln that his reelection was now an impossibility.”
John C. Waugh; Lincoln and McClellan; Palgrave Macmillan; 2010.

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking
you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare
honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be
got by it. -Charles Dickens, novelist (7 Feb 1812-1870)